Tremors in Our Hands
by Balakirev
Summary: They were told that Lance was dead. Lance was told that he would never have to fight in the war against the Z Wave again. None of them were told that there are far worse wars to be fighting.


The initial shock is nothing compared to the relief.

"...You're alive." Keith couldn't say a thing more. Just stared. He saw the cautious look in Lance's new, "improved" eyes that GalTech gave him, after they found Lance barely alive in the wake of a warzone. A victim of the government's experiments - a new test subject. Declared officially dead for thirty seconds, Lance had had his rights stripped from him the minute he was no longer considered alive. He was a product of government-funded testing. To them he was an object, not a person.

Not anymore.

"They're keeping track of everything," Lance said, even. His eyes looked real - Keith assumed they _were_ real. But they'd undoubtedly been damaged in the heat of the Z-Wave firefight, recovered only through a multi-million dollar process where not just his eyes were fixed, but everything else, too. Fixed, or replaced.

"My body - my body was _dead_ ," Lance had explained once he and Keith had both stopped crying, shaking his head as if he couldn't believe it himself. And, well, could Keith blame him? Neither one of them could believe it. The reunion between him - not to mention the others - and Keith had been overwhelming. "They're seeing everything - _every_ thing, Keith," Lance said, shaking his head. His voice had a snarl in it. "Monitoring everything from the images my eyes see, to my heartbeat, to every person I come into contact with."

Keith understands.

"A normal life is out of the question."

"You're alive, though."

"My _brain_ is alive," Lance said with a swallow. His face was smooth, still darkly tanned but smoother than it had been since the last time Keith had seen him, which was… a year?

Yeah, a year this month. One year since Lance had been recruited for a mission that, up until an hour ago, Keith thought had killed him.

"No, _you_ are alive, Lance." He reached to grab for Lance's wrist, also smoother than it should have been. The skin looked too new, too free of blemishes and freckles and all the other things that twenty-two-year-olds were supposed to have. Now, Lance had a new look that was just shy of eerie: smoothed out features, no freckles to speak of, thick eyelashes and a nose that was a little more perfect than was natural. He was the same height for sure, just a couple inches taller than Keith, still had that sharp chin, thin eyebrows and wiry build, but he was also more... still. Lance was normally restless, fidgety, tapping his fingers or shifting from foot to foot.

He stood like a statue, now. Or a robot, waiting for a command.

Keith hated it. He wanted the old Lance back.

He held back a grimace when his eyes roamed Lance's face again and noticed a tiny brown spot near his right temple; he knew the marking. There was an implant there. Cases like Lance were so rare, but they happened - When they _did_ happen, the government just couldn't keep their fucking noses out of other people's business. Lance might as well have been a drone, hollow and metal and fake and insentient and it fucking _killed_ Keith to know that Lance couldn't have even the barest semblance of privacy anymore. Everything he did, every time he so much as breathed, would be recorded and logged for later analysis back in some lab somewhere.

Shit, Keith thought he might vomit.

"They used the tissues that weren't damaged from the z-waves and grew them in a lab," Lance said, forcing the words out like he was choking on them. It was only then that Keith could see the tremor running through his hands, the faintest movement that leaked into Keith's hands, then into the rest of his body and before he knew it, he was trembling, too. He was almost glad to see it in Lance, to see some sort of human trait in a body that was so new, a body that wasn't trying terribly hard to look human.

But this was Lance.

Lance, who still wore his dumb bomber jacket with the baggy pockets, had the same twinkle in his eye, the same worn boots that he went everywhere with before the Recruitment.

"Doctors did their best to explain how they saved my brain from shutting down," Lance murmured, sounding far away. "Could've lost all my memories," he sniffed and let Keith's arms wrap tight around his waist. He let his head fall, burying it in Keith's shoulder. "Glad I didn't. Guess I still have something to be thankful for."

"They're still tracking you, though," said Keith, only just beginning to feel the bitterness bubbling up for Lance on his behalf. It made him sick, it really did. Nothing was sacred anymore.

"They want to make sure this body is stable."

 _Body._

As if that was all he was, now. Just an empty vessel to be micromanaged and followed around, watched and picked apart and studied like some sick experiment. Because that was all this was, right? It was all a sick experiment. It was repulsive. They couldn't just treat patients and be done with it.

"Besides," Lance added, quieter, "it was either they put in the implant, or they make my family pay the bills for the operation." He shook harder then, sinking into the embrace with a desperation that was so human and natural that Keith almost felt bad for feeling so relieved. "We can't afford that shit, man. _No_ one can. That's how they get you."

Keith said nothing.

All he did was hold Lance, wishing there was something he could do, anything. But this was not the old Lance; this was a man who had seen war and, as far as Keith had known, died in battle. Then he'd been brought back to life in a way that almost all those awful, dystopian sci-fi movies from decades ago had warned _not_ to do, and now he was standing here in Keith's office at Altea Ops headquarters as rain pounded against the wall-to-ceiling windows, crying into Keith's shoulder as they both wondered where in the world they were supposed to go from here.

But wherever it was they went, at least they weren't going alone.

Hey folks, this fic is also on AO3! Feel free to check out more of my work under the username TeaParade on that site. Hope y'all enjoyed!


End file.
